The Wide Abides

Just got off the phone with Kim Finch, one of the three new co-owners of the Double Wide. The longtime DW staffer, along with fellow DW ladies Jill Saveh and Whitney King, have taken the lease over from Jim Sibert in an equal partnership effective immediately. The bar name remains…

Big mo’

Big mo’: So, now what? Say you helped organize Sunday’s humongous immigration rally, bringing a crowd roughly twice the size of Plano peacefully downtown. Amazing. Pat yourself on the back. What else ya got? Assume for a moment that Congress regains its sanity–big assumption–and doesn’t make criminals of illegal immigrants…

AWOL

While the politicians were milling around waiting for the big immigration march to start last Sunday, one of the things they were all gossiping about, of course, was politicians: who was going to show up and who wasn’t. In particular, I thought I picked up some anxiety on the part…

RE: The Unfriendly Skies

Before moving to Dallas, I rarely flew on a major carrier. Southwest was much cheaper to fly home from Utah, as was JetBlue when I lived in New York. Now that I cannot fly on either (due to the Wright Amendment, I guess) I am forced to choose between United,…

The Love Belo

Last night the Observer softball team convened for our weekly butt kicking. As in, we stand there, other teams do the kicking. But last night, it was personal. We played the Dallas Morning News team, a formidable crew outfitted with fancy-schmancy SportsDay shirts. One of them had on a knee…

Double Wide Died

Rumors are flying at Internet speed, so here’s what I know for sure–the Double Wide is closing down. Their doors will not be open tonight and will not be open in the immediate future. I spoke with DW booking agent Chelsea Callahan just a few minutes ago–she answered her phone…

Pay Up or Shut Up, Preferably the Latter

Though 88 bands were advertised to play the Wall of Sound Festival, the total number of acts that actually played was only 86. Huge disappointment, right? The two drop-outs were relatively notable, though–Comet, who played one of their first 2005 reunion gigs at last year’s debut WoSF, had to bail…

Score!

Gentleman, if you wanted to hook up with Dr. Mona, CBS-11’s jet setting medical correspondent, you might have missed your chance. In case you didn’t see Channel 11’s nauseating promo, the station was openly pimping out Dr. M, making her dating life depressing fodder for its depressed viewers: “How in…

Listen Up, Because You Don’t Hate Me Yet

I don’t write a weekly music column, which has two advantages. One, I probably haven’t insulted your band. Two, I probably haven’t insulted your friend’s band. As such, you can approach this entry with little to no prejudice against my opinions and decide only after you’ve read this that I…

Beach Combers

If only life were like a typical Neil Simon play. Anger would be expressed with quips and gags. So would pain, sadness, happiness, horniness, loneliness and any other -ness you could think of. Existence would play to a laugh track, and the never-ending punch lines would be broad and telegraphed…

Space Is Still the Place

Pop quiz: How many astronauts are currently in space? The answer is either two or five, at the International Space Station, depending on what day you are reading this, since three were scheduled to return to Earth on Saturday.Gone are the days when space exploration was big news. Today, people…

Simple minds

Simple minds: Buzz must have read 20,000 words last week about controlling illegal immigration, and a common cry raised by many pundits was this: Prosecute employers for hiring illegal immigrants. Take away the jobs, and you take away the incentive for illegal immigration. It’s simple: Better to drain the swamp…

Well Excuse Us

Don’t think that DISD is allowing its newly politically aware student contingency to get away with protesting immigration legislation again today. In fact, the district isn’t even letting them get away with protesting yesterday. DISD spokeswoman Yvette Weiss tells me that anyone who left class to march on either day…

Toke This

If news happens, but no one is there to issue a press release, is it still news? There’s a koan for all you tree-hugging hippie stoner types to mull over while we offer up some rather old news to the less easily distracted: The League of Women Voters of Texas…

The Train Rolls On

Whenever Cousin Pearl would cut loose with a yodel on The Beverly Hillbillies and the dogs would come a-runnin’, you pretty much knew where yodeling stood in pop culture: a hillbilly joke, the sound of hickdom. If you think that, then you’ve probably never heard Jimmie Rodgers sing “Train Whistle…

Blame Canada

Hey, hipster, got eight grand or so lying around your pad unused? Heritage Auction Galleries has just the thing for you: “home” movies of the Rat Pack shot by a Canadian couple while Francis Albert, Dino, Sammy and those other two guys were filming the original Ocean’s 11 in Las…

Get Thee Behind Me, Cookie

Can’t legally buy crack. Noooo, that would be bad. Grass, heroin, X, speed? Go directly to jail. But cookies? Not only has the DEA failed to regulate these highly addictive, waistline-destroying sugar bombs, some wicked people are even teaching classes on how to bake them at the Central Market cooking…

Genteel Fans

Texas was not just outplayed yesterday in the Big 12 Men’s Basketball Tournament final. It was out-fanned. Looked to me like burnt orange outnumbered by about two-to-one the grape or periwinkle or whatever color Kansas claims, but the KU fans absolutely shook the American Airlines Center with their ardor. Texas…

Skin Like a Doll

Five staples in the head of a Dallas Observer employee. Wound courtesy of a drunk asshole at the Toadies’ reunion concert. The crowd at Saturday’s Greenville Ave. St. Patrick’s Day Parade concert bided its time. As long lines filed into the blocked-off Yale Boulevard party zone, Dallas’ Baboon unleashed some…

Indigo Flame War

Popular link-collecting Web site Fark.com allows users to make fun of news stories in their barely moderated comments section–the exact opposite of the no-comments, autocratic regime we run here at Unfair Park. It’s rare when we make their list, and this week, Jesse Hyde’s Little Boy Blue makes the cut…

One for the Show

Publicists exist to give journalists free stuff. (Alternatively, they also coordinate attempts to prevent us from trying to get the information we really need vs. what they want to tell us.) They may also make a mean meat loaf or run a four-minute mile, but in the grand scheme of…

Altered State of Mind

Remember way back when there were only two sports in Dallas: football and off-season football? Don’t look now, helmet head, but Dallas is suddenly imitating a pretty decent Mecca of basketball. The rise of roundball permeates all levels. Last weekend in Austin, Dallas-area high schools swept the three biggest classes…